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Queens

Queens is the easternmost and largest in area of the five boroughs of New York City. It is geographically adjacent to the borough of Brooklyn at the southwestern end of Long Island, and to Nassau County farther east on Long Island; in addition, Queens shares water borders with the boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx. Coterminous with Queens County since 1899, the borough of Queens is the second-largest in population (after Brooklyn), with a census-estimated 2,333,054 residents in 2016,[1] approximately 48% of them foreign-born.[2] Queens County also is the second-most populous county in the U.S. state of New York, behind the neighboring borough of Brooklyn, which is coterminous with Kings County. Queens is the fourth-most densely populated county among New York City's boroughs, as well as in the United States. If each of New York City's boroughs were an independent city, Queens also would be the nation's fourth most populous, after Los Angeles, Chicago, and Brooklyn.[3] Queens is the most ethnically diverse urban area in the world.[4][5]

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European colonization brought Dutch and English settlers, as a part of the New Netherland colony. First settlements occurred in 1635 followed by early colonizations at Maspeth in 1642,[11] and Vlissingen (now Flushing) in 1643.[12] Other early settlements included Newtown (now Elmhurst) and Jamaica. However, these towns were mostly inhabited by English settlers from New England via eastern Long Island (Suffolk County) subject to Dutch law.[13] After the capture of the colony by the English and its renaming as New York in 1664, the area (and all of Long Island) became known as Yorkshire.

Originally, Queens County included the adjacent area now comprising Nassau County. It was an original county of New York State, one of twelve created on November 1, 1683.[14] The county is assumed to have been named after Catherine of Braganza, since she was queen of England at the time (she was Portugal's royal princess Catarina daughter of King John IV of Portugal).[6] The county was founded alongside Kings County (Brooklyn, which was named after her husband, King Charles II), and Richmond County (Staten Island, named after his illegitimate son, the 1st Duke of Richmond).[15][16][17] However, the namesake is in dispute; while Catherine's title seems the most likely namesake, no historical evidence of official declaration has been found.[18] On October 7, 1691, all counties in the Colony of New York were redefined. Queens gained North Brother Island, South Brother Island, and Huletts Island (today known as Rikers Island).[19] On December 3, 1768, Queens gained other islands in Long Island Sound that were not already assigned to a county but that did not abut on Westchester County (today's Bronx County).[20]

Queens played a minor role in the American Revolution, as compared to Brooklyn, where the Battle of Long Island was largely fought. Queens, like the rest of what became New York City and Long Island, remained under British occupation after the Battle of Long Island in 1776 and was occupied throughout most of the rest of the Revolutionary War. Under the Quartering Act, British soldiers used, as barracks, the public inns and uninhabited buildings belonging to Queens residents. Even though many local people were against unannounced quartering, sentiment throughout the county remained in favor of the British crown. The quartering of soldiers in private homes, except in times of war, was banned by the Third Amendment to the United States Constitution. Nathan Hale was captured by the British on the shore of Flushing Bay in Queens before being executed by hanging in Manhattan for gathering intelligence.

From 1683 until 1784, Queens County consisted of five towns: Flushing, Hempstead, Jamaica, Newtown, and Oyster Bay. On April 6, 1784, a sixth town, the Town of North Hempstead, was formed through secession by the northern portions of the Town of Hempstead.[21][22] The seat of the county government was located first in Jamaica,[23] but the courthouse was torn down by the British during the American Revolution to use the materials to build barracks.[24] After the war, various buildings in Jamaica temporarily served as courthouse and jail until a new building was erected about 1787 (and later completed) in an area near Mineola (now in Nassau County) known then as Clowesville.[25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41]

The 1850 census was the first in which the population of the three western towns exceeded that of the three eastern towns that are now part of Nassau County. Concerns were raised about the condition and distance of the old courthouse, and several sites were in contention for the construction of a new one.[42]

In 1870, Long Island City split from the Town of Newtown, incorporating itself as a city, consisting of what had been the Village of Astoria and some unincorporated areas within the Town of Newtown. Around 1874, the seat of county government was moved to Long Island City from Mineola.[38][43][44][45]

The New York City Borough of Queens was authorized on May 4, 1897, by a vote of the New York State Legislature after an 1894 referendum on consolidation.[52] The eastern 280 square miles (730 km2) of Queens that became Nassau County was partitioned on January 1, 1899.[53]

Queens Borough was established on January 1, 1898.[54][55][56][57] Long Island City, the towns of Newtown, Flushing, and Jamaica, and the Rockaway Peninsula portion of the Town of Hempstead were merged to form the new borough, dissolving all former municipal governments (Long Island City, the county government, all towns, and all villages) within the new borough.[58] The areas of Queens County that were not part of the consolidation plan,[44][59][60][61][62][63][64] consisting of the towns of North Hempstead and Oyster Bay, and the major remaining portion of the Town of Hempstead, remained part of Queens County until they seceded to form the new Nassau County on January 1, 1899. At this point, the boundaries of Queens County and the Borough of Queens became coterminous. With consolidation, Jamaica once again became the county seat, though county offices now extend to nearby Kew Gardens also.[65]

The borough's administrative and court buildings are presently located in Kew Gardens and downtown Jamaica respectively, two neighborhoods that were villages of the former Town of Jamaica.

Looking south from the Queensboro Bridge in Long Island City, this photo was published in 1920 by the Queens Chamber of Commerce to illustrate the borough's "numerous attractive industrial plants".[69]

Brooklyn, the only other New York City borough on geographic Long Island, lies just south and west of Queens, with Newtown Creek, an estuary that flows into the East River, forming part of the border. To the west and north is the East River, across which is Manhattan to the west and The Bronx to the north. Nassau County is east of Queens on Long Island. Staten Island is southwest of Brooklyn, and shares only a 3-mile-long water border (in the Outer Bay) with Queens.

Under the Köppen climate classification, using the 32 °F (0 °C) coldest month (January) isotherm, Queens and the rest of New York City have a humid subtropical climate (Cfa) with partial shielding from the Appalachian Mountains and moderating influences from the Atlantic Ocean. Queens receives plentiful precipitation all year round with 44.8 in (1,140 mm) yearly. Extremes range from 107 °F (41.6 °C) to -3 °F (-19.4 °C). Winters are relatively mild compared to other areas of New York State, though snow is common and blizzards occur about every 4–6 years. Springs are unpredictable and can be chilly to very warm. Summers are hot, humid, and wet. Autumn is similar to spring, while snowfall generally begins in December.

Monthly and annual statistics for the three main climatology stations in New York City

Four United States Postal Service postal zones serve Queens, based roughly on those serving the towns in existence at the consolidation of the five boroughs into New York City: Long Island City (ZIP codes starting with 111), Jamaica (114), Flushing (113), and Far Rockaway (116). In addition, the Floral Park post office (110), based in Nassau County, serves a small part of northeastern Queens. Each of these main post offices have neighborhood stations with individual ZIP codes, and unlike the other boroughs, these station names are often used in addressing letters. These ZIP codes do not always reflect traditional neighborhood names and boundaries; "East Elmhurst", for example, was largely coined by the USPS and is not an official community. Most neighborhoods have no solid boundaries. The Forest Hills and Rego Park neighborhoods, for instance, overlap.

Residents of Queens often closely identify with their neighborhood rather than with the borough or city. The borough is a patchwork of dozens of unique neighborhoods, each with its own distinct identity:

Corona and Corona Heights, once considered the "Little Italy" of Queens, was a predominantly Italian community with a strong African American community in the northern portion of Corona and adjacent East Elmhurst. From the 1920s through the 1960s, Corona remained a close-knit neighborhood. Corona today has the highest concentration of Latinos of any Queens neighborhood, with an increasing Chinese American population, located between Elmhurst and Flushing.[87]

Since 2010, the population of Queens was estimated by the United States Census Bureau to have increased 4.9% to 2,339,150, as of 2015 – Queens' estimated population represented 27.4% of New York City's population of 8,550,405; 29.8% of Long Island's population of 7,838,722; and 11.8% of New York State's population of 19,795,791.[2][95][96][97][98][99]

According to 2012 census estimates, 27.2% of the population was Non-Hispanic White,[93] 20.9% Black or African American, 24.8% Asian, 12.9% from some other race, and 2.7% of two or more races. 27.9% of Queens's population was of Hispanic or Latino origin (of any race).[100]

The New York City Department of City Planning was alarmed by the negligible reported increase in population between 2000 and 2010. Areas with high proportions of immigrants and undocumented aliens are traditionally undercounted for a variety of reasons, often based on a mistrust of government officials or an unwillingness to be identified. In many cases, counts of vacant apartment units did not match data from local surveys and reports from property owners.[101]

According to a 2001 Claritas study, Queens was the most diverse county in the United States among counties of 100,000+ population.[102] A 2014 analysis by The Atlantic found Queens County to be the 3rd most racially diverse county-equivalent in the United States—behind Aleutians West Census Area and Aleutians East Borough in Alaska—as well as the most diverse county in New York.[103] In Queens, approximately 48.5% of the population was foreign-born as of 2010. Of that, 49.5% were born in Latin America, 33.5% in Asia, 14.8% in Europe, 1.8% in Africa, and 0.4% in North America. Roughly 2.1% of the population was born in Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory, or abroad to American parents. In addition, 51.2% of the population was born in the United States. Approximately 44.2% of the population over 5 years of age speak English at home; 23.8% speak Spanish at home. Also, 16.8% of the populace speak other Indo-European languages at home. Another 13.5% speak an Asian language at home.[104]

The Hispanic or Latino population increased by 61% to 597,773 between 1990 and 2006 and now accounts for 26.5% of the borough's population. Queens is now home to hundreds of thousands of Latinos and Hispanics:

Queens has the largest Colombian population in the city, accounting for 76.6% of the city's total Colombian population, for a total of 80,116.

Queens has the largest Ecuadorian population in the city, accounting for 62.2% of the city's total Ecuadorian population, for a total of 101,339.

Queens has the largest Peruvian population in the city, accounting for 69.9% of the city's total Peruvian population, for a total of 30,825.

Queens has the largest Salvadoran population in the city, accounting for 50.7% of the city's for a total population of 25,235.

The Mexican population in Queens has increased 45.7% to 71,283, the second highest in the city, after Brooklyn.[105]

The borough is also home to one of the highest concentrations of Indian Americans in the nation, with an estimated population of 144,896 in 2014 (6.24% of the 2014 borough population),[106] as well as Pakistani Americans, who number at 15,604.[107] Queens has the second largest Sikh population in the nation after California.[108]

In 2010, Queens held a disproportionate share of several Asian communities within New York City, relative to its overall population, as follows:[109]

There were 782,664 households out of which 31.5% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 46.9% were married couples living together, 16.0% had a female householder with no husband present, and 31.3% were non-families. 25.6% of all households were made up of individuals and 9.7% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.81 and the average family size was 3.39.

In the county, the population was spread out with 22.8% under the age of 18, 9.6% from 18 to 24, 33.1% from 25 to 44, 21.7% from 45 to 64, and 12.7% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 35 years. For every 100 females there were 92.9 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 89.6 males.

The median income for a household in the county was $37,439, and the median income for a family was $42,608. Males had a median income of $30,576 versus $26,628 for females. The per capita income for the county was $19,222. About 16.9% of families and 24.7% of the population were below the poverty line, including 18.8% of those under age 18 and 13.0% of those age 65 or over. In Queens, the black population earns more than whites on average.[112] Many of these African Americans live in quiet, middle class suburban neighborhoods near the Nassau County border, such as Laurelton and Cambria Heights which have large black populations whose family income is higher than average. Those areas are known for their well kept homes, suburban feel, and low crime rate. The migration of European Americans from parts of Queens has been long ongoing with departures from Ozone Park, Woodhaven, Bellerose, Floral Park, and Flushing, etc. (most of the outgoing population has been replaced with Asian Americans). Neighborhoods such as Whitestone, College Point, North Flushing, Auburndale, Bayside, Middle Village, Little Neck, and Douglaston have not had a substantial exodus of white residents, but have seen an increase of Asian population, mostly Chinese and Korean. Queens has experienced a real estate boom making most of its neighborhoods very desirable for people who want to reside near Manhattan in a less urban setting.

Queens hosts various museums and cultural institutions that serve its diverse communities. They range from the historical (such as the John Bowne House) to the scientific (such as the New York Hall of Science), from conventional art galleries (such as the Noguchi Museum) to unique graffiti exhibits (such as 5 Pointz). Queens's cultural institutions include, but are not limited to:

The travel magazine Lonely Planet also named Queens the top destination in the country for 2015 for its cultural and culinary diversity.[117] Stating that Queens is "quickly becoming its hippest" but that "most travelers haven’t clued in… yet,"[118] the Lonely Planet stated that "nowhere is the image of New York as the global melting pot truer than Queens."[119]

Since 1990 the Borough President has acted as an advocate for the borough at the mayoral agencies, the City Council, the New York state government, and corporations. Queens' Borough President is Melinda Katz, elected in November 2013 as a Democrat with 80.3% of the vote . Queens Borough Hall is the seat of government and is located in Kew Gardens.

The Democratic Party holds most public offices. Sixty-three percent of registered Queens voters are Democrats. Local party platforms center on affordable housing, education and economic development. Controversial political issues in Queens include development, noise, and the cost of housing.

Each of the city's five counties has its own criminal court system and District Attorney, the chief public prosecutor who is directly elected by popular vote. Richard A. Brown, who ran on both the Republican and Democratic Party tickets, has been the District Attorney of Queens County since 1991.[125] Queens has 12 seats on the New York City Council, the second largest number among the five boroughs. It is divided into 14 community districts, each served by a local Community Board. Community Boards are representative bodies that field complaints and serve as advocates for local residents.

Although Queens is heavily Democratic, it is considered a swing county in New York politics. Republican political candidates who do well in Queens usually win citywide or statewide elections. Republicans such as former Mayors Rudolph Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg won majorities in Queens. Republican State Senator Serphin Maltese represented a district in central and southern Queens for twenty years until his defeat in 2008 by Democratic City Councilman Joseph Addabbo. In 2002, Queens voted against incumbent Republican Governor of New YorkGeorge Pataki in favor of his Democratic opponent, Carl McCall by a slim margin.

However, Queens has not voted for a Republican candidate in a presidential election since 1972, when Queens voters chose Richard Nixon over George McGovern. Since the 1996 presidential election, Democratic presidential candidates have received over 70% of the popular vote in Queens.

Queens has the second-largest economy of New York City's five boroughs, following Manhattan. In 2004, Queens had 15.2% (440,310) of all private sector jobs in New York City and 8.8% of private sector wages. Queens has the most diversified economy of the five boroughs, with occupations spread relatively evenly across the health care, retail trade, manufacturing, construction, transportation, and film and television production sectors, such that no single sector is overwhelmingly dominant.[7]

The diversification in Queens' economy is reflected in the large amount of employment in the export-oriented portions of its economy—such as transportation, manufacturing, and business services—that serve customers outside the region. This accounts for more than 27% of all Queens jobs and offers an average salary of $43,727, 14% greater than that of jobs in the locally oriented sector.

The borough's largest employment sector—trade, transportation, and utilities—accounted for nearly 30% of all jobs in 2004. Queens is home to two of the three major New York City area airports, JFK International Airport and LaGuardia Airport. These airports are among the busiest in the world, leading the airspace above Queens to be the most congested in the country. This airline industry is particularly important to the economy of Queens, providing almost one quarter of the sector's employment and more than 30% of the sector's wages.

Education and health services is the next largest sector in Queens and comprised almost 24% of the borough's jobs in 2004. The manufacturing and construction industries in Queens are the largest of the City and account for nearly 17% of the borough's private sector jobs. Comprising almost 17% of the jobs in Queens is the information, financial activities, and business and professional services sectors.

As of 2003[update], Queens had almost 40,000 business establishments. Small businesses act as an important part of the borough's economic vitality with two thirds of all business employing between one and four people.

LaGuardia Airport is located in Flushing, in northern Queens, on Flushing Bay. Originally opened in 1939, the airport's two runways and four terminals cover 680 acres (280 ha), serving 28.4 million passengers in 2015.[137] In 2014, citing outdated conditions in the airport's terminals, Vice President Joe Biden compared LaGuardia to a "third world country".[138] In 2015, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey began a $4 billion project to completely reconstruct LaGuardia Airport's terminals and entry ways, with an estimated completion in 2021.[136]

A commuter train system, the Long Island Rail Road, operates 22 stations in Queens with service to Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Long Island. Jamaica station is a hub station where all the lines in the system but one (the Port Washington Branch) converge. It is the busiest commuter rail hub in the United States. Sunnyside Yard is used as a staging area by Amtrak and NJ Transit for intercity and commuter trains from Penn Station in Manhattan. 61st Street – Woodside acts as one of the many LIRR connections to the New York City Subway. The elevated AirTrainpeople mover system connects JFK International Airport to the New York City Subway and the Long Island Rail Road along the Van Wyck Expressway;[140] a separate AirTrain system is planned alongside the Grand Central Parkway to connect LaGuardia Airport to these transit systems.[141][142] Plans were announced in July 2015 to entirely rebuild LaGuardia Airport itself in a multibillion-dollar project to replace its aging facilities, and this project would accommodate the new AirTrain connection.[136]

In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy on October 29, 2012, massive infrastructure damage to the IND Rockaway Line (A train) south of the Howard Beach – JFK Airport station severed all direct subway connections between the Rockaway Peninsula and Broad Channel, Queens and the Queens mainland for many months. Ferry operator SeaStreak began running a city-subsidized ferry service between a makeshift ferry slip at Beach 108th Street and Beach Channel Drive in Rockaway Park, Queens, and Pier 11/Wall Street, then continuing on to the East 34th Street Ferry Landing. In August 2013, a stop was added at Brooklyn Army Terminal.[147] Originally intended as just a stopgap alternative transportation measure until subway service was restored to the Rockaways, the ferry proved to be popular with both commuters and tourists and was extended several times, as city officials evaluated the ridership numbers to determine whether to establish the service on a permanent basis. Between its inception and December 2013, the service had carried close to 200,000 riders.[148] When the city government announced its budget in late June 2014 for the upcoming fiscal year beginning July 1, the ferry only received a $2 million further appropriation, enough to temporarily extend it again through October, but did not receive the approximately $8 million appropriation needed to keep the service running for the full fiscal year.[149] Despite last-minute efforts by local transportation advocates, civic leaders and elected officials, ferry service ended on October 31, 2014. They promised to continue efforts to have the service restored.[150]

Standard cross-street signs for a single-named Boulevard and a co-named Avenue, in Queens

The streets of Queens are laid out in a semi-grid system, with a numerical system of street names (similar to Manhattan and the Bronx). Nearly all roadways oriented north-south are "Streets", while east-west roadways are "Avenues", beginning with the number 1 in the west for Streets and in the north for Avenues. In some parts of the borough, several consecutive streets may share numbers (for instance, 72nd Street followed by 72nd Place and 72nd Lane, or 52nd Avenue followed by 52nd Road, 52nd Drive, and 52nd Court), often causing confusion for non-residents.[156] In addition, incongruous alignments of street grids, unusual street paths due to geography, or other circumstances often lead to the skipping of numbers (for instance, on Ditmars Boulevard, 70th Street is followed by Hazen Street which is followed by 49th Street). Numbered roads tend to be residential, although numbered commercial streets are not rare. A fair number of streets that were country roads in the 18th and 19th centuries (especially major thoroughfares such as Northern Boulevard, Queens Boulevard, Hillside Avenue, and Jamaica Avenue) carry names rather than numbers, typically though not uniformly called "Boulevards" or "Parkways".

Queens house numbering was designed to provide convenience in locating the address itself; the first half of a number in a Queens address refers to the nearest cross street, the second half refers to the house or lot number from where the street begins from that cross street, followed by the name of the street itself. For example, to find an address in Queens, 14-01 120th Street, one could ascertain from the address structure itself that the listed address is at the intersection of 14th Avenue and 120th Street, and that the address must be closest to 14th Avenue rather than 15th Avenue, as it is the first lot on the block. This pattern doesn't stop when a street is named, assuming that there is an existing numbered cross-street. For example, Queens College is situated at 65–30 Kissena Boulevard, and is so named because the cross-street closest to the entrance is 65th Avenue.[156]

Many of the village street grids of Queens had only worded names, some were numbered according to local numbering schemes, and some had a mix of words and numbers. In the early 1920s a "Philadelphia Plan" was instituted to overlay one numbered system upon the whole borough. The Topographical Bureau, Borough of Queens, worked out the details. Subway stations were only partly renamed, and some, including those along the IRT Flushing Line (7<7> trains), now share dual names after the original street names.[157] In 2012, some numbered streets in the Douglaston Hill Historic District were renamed to their original names, with 43rd Avenue becoming Pine Street.[158]

The Rockaway Peninsula does not follow the same system as the rest of the borough and has its own numbering system. Streets are numbered in ascending order heading west from near the Nassau County border, and are prefixed with the word "Beach." Streets at the easternmost end, however, are nearly all named. Streets in Bayswater, which is on Jamaica Bay, has its numbered streets prefixed with the word "Bay" rather than "Beach". Another deviation from the norm is Broad Channel; it maintains the north-south numbering progression but uses only the suffix "Road," as well as the prefixes "West" and "East," depending on location relative to Cross Bay Boulevard, the neighborhood's major through street. Broad Channel's streets were a continuation of the mainland Queens grid in the 1950s; formerly the highest numbered avenue in Queens was 208th Avenue rather today's 165th Avenue in Howard Beach & Hamilton Beach. The other exception is the neighborhood of Ridgewood, which for the most part shares a grid and house numbering system with the Brooklyn neighborhood of Bushwick. The grid runs east-west from the LIRR Bay Ridge Branchright-of-way to Flushing Avenue; and north-south from Forest Avenue in Ridgewood to Bushwick Avenue in Brooklyn before adjusting to meet up with the Bedford-Stuyvesant grid at Broadway. All streets on the grid have names.

Elementary and secondary school education in Queens is provided by a vast number of public and private institutions. Public schools in the borough are managed by the New York City Department of Education, the largest public school system in the United States. Most private schools are affiliated to or identify themselves with the Roman Catholic or Jewish religious communities. Townsend Harris High School is a Queens public magnet high school for the humanities consistently ranked as among the top 100 high schools in the United States.

Queens College is one of the elite colleges in the CUNY system. Established in 1937 to offer a strong liberal arts education to the residents of the borough, Queens College has over 16,000 students including more than 12,000 undergraduates and over 4,000 graduate students. Students from 120 different countries speaking 66 different languages are enrolled at the school, which is located in Flushing. Queens College is also the host of CUNY's law school. The Queens College Campus is also the home of Townsend Harris High School and the Queens College School for Math, Science, and Technology (PS/IS 499).

St. John's University is a private, coeducational Roman Catholic university founded in 1870 by the Vincentian Fathers. With over 19,000 students, St. John's is known for its pharmacy, business and law programs as well as its men's basketball and soccer teams.

Vaughn College of Aeronautics and Technology is a private, cutting edge, degree granting institution located across the Grand Central Parkway from LaGuardia Airport. Its presence underscores the importance of aviation to the Queens economy.

York College is one of CUNY's leading general-purpose liberal arts colleges, granting bachelor's degrees in more than 40 fields, as well as a combined BS/MS degree in Occupational Therapy. Noted for its Health Sciences Programs York College is also home to the Northeast Regional Office of the Food and Drug Administration.

The Queens Borough Public Library is the public library system for the borough and one of three library systems serving New York City. Dating back to the foundation of the first Queens library in Flushing in 1858, the Queens Borough Public Library is one of the largest public library systems in the United States. Separate from the New York Public Library, it is composed of 63 branches throughout the borough. In fiscal year 2001, the Library achieved a circulation of 16.8 million. First in circulation in New York State since 1985, the Library has maintained the highest circulation of any city library in the country since 1985 and the highest circulation of any library in the nation since 1987. The Library maintains collections in many languages, including Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Russian, Haitian Creole, Polish, and six Indic languages, as well as smaller collections in 19 other languages.

^Ellis, Edward Robb (1966). The Epic of New York City. Old Town Books. p. 54.

^Scheltema, Gajus and Westerhuijs, Heleen (eds.),Exploring Historic Dutch New York. Museum of the City of New York/Dover Publications, New York (2011). ISBN978-0-486-48637-6

^New York: Commissioners of Statutory Revision:Colonial Laws of New York from the year 1664 to the Revolution, including the Charters of the Duke of York, the Commissions and instructions to Colonial Governors, the Duke's Laws, the Laws of the Dongan and Leisler Assemblies, the Charters of Albany and New York, and the acts of the Colonial Legislatures from 1691 to 1775, inclusive. Report to the Assembly #107, 1894. five Volumes. Albany, New York; 1894–1896; Chapter 4; Section 1; Page 122.

^Room, Adrian. 2006. Place names of the world: origins and meanings of the names for 6,600 Countries, Cities, Territories, Natural Features and Historic Sites. P.308

^New York: Commissioners of Statutory Revision:Colonial Laws of New York from the year 1664 to the Revolution, including the Charters of the Duke of York, the Commissions and instructions to Colonial Governors, the Duke's Laws, the Laws of the Dongan and Leisler Assemblies, the Charters of Albany and New York, and the acts of the Colonial Legislatures from 1691 to 1775, inclusive. Report to the Assembly #107, 1894. five Volumes. Albany, New York; 1894–1896; Chapter 17; Section 1; Page 268.

^New York: Commissioners of Statutory Revision:Colonial Laws of New York from the year 1664 to the Revolution, including the Charters of the Duke of York, the Commissions and instructions to Colonial Governors, the Duke's Laws, the Laws of the Dongan and Leisler Assemblies, the Charters of Albany and New York, and the acts of the Colonial Legislatures from 1691 to 1775, inclusive. Report to the Assembly #107, 1894. five volumes. Albany, New York; 1894–1896; Chapter 1376; Section 4; page 1063.

^"Early Five Borough's History". Retrieved December 30, 2007. When Queens County was created the courts were transferred from Hempstead to Jamaica Village and a County Court was erected. When the building became too small for its purposes and the stone meeting house had been erected, the courts were held for some years in that edifice. Later a new courthouse was erected and used until the seat of justice was removed to North Hempstead.

^"Historical Essay: A Thumbnail View". Official History Page of the Queens Borough President's Office. Archived from the original on December 18, 2007. Retrieved December 29, 2007. From the final withdrawal of the British in November, 1783, until the 1830s, Queens continued as an essentially Long Island area of farms and villages. The location of the county government in Mineola (in present-day Nassau County) underscores the island orientation of that era. The population grew hardly at all, increasing only from 5,791 in 1800 to 7,806 in 1830, suggesting that many younger sons moved away, seeking fortunes where land was not yet so fully taken up for farming.

^Jon A. Peterson and Vincent Seyfried, ed. (1983). A Research Guide to the History of the Borough of Queens and Its Neighborhood.CS1 maint: Extra text: authors list (link)

^Peterson, Jon A., ed. (1987). A Research Guide to the History of the Borough of Queens, New York City. New York: Queens College, City University of New York.CS1 maint: Multiple names: authors list (link)CS1 maint: Extra text: authors list (link)

^Sullivan, James (1927). History of New York State 1523–1927. New York, Chicago: Lewis Historical Publishing Company, Inc.

^"New York State History". Genealogy Inc. 1999. Archived from the original on January 8, 2008. Retrieved December 28, 2007. Under the Reorganization Act of March 7, 1788, New York was divided into 120 towns (not townships), many of which were already in existence.

^"State of New York; Local Government Handbook; 5th Edition"(PDF). January 2000. pp. Ch 4, p 13; Ch 5 p 2. Archived from the original(PDF) on February 15, 2010. The 1777 New York State Constitution, Article XXXVI, confirmed land grants and municipal charters granted by the English Crown prior to October 14, 1775. Chapter 64 of the Laws of 1788 organized the state into towns and cities...The basic composition of the counties was set in 1788 when the State Legislature divided all of the counties then existing into towns. Towns, of course, were of earlier origin, but in that year they acquired a new legal status as components of the counties.

^"History Mysteries: Shelter Island Ferry/Mineola Building". Archived from the original on July 6, 2008. Retrieved April 1, 2008. The building shown below "is one of the most important buildings in the history of Mineola," wrote Jack Hehman, president of the Mineola Historical Society. Built in 1787 and known as the "old brig," it was the first Queens County courthouse and later a home for the mentally ill. The building was at Jericho Turnpike and Herricks Road until 1910, when it burned to the ground.

^"The Mineola Asylum; Witnesses who testified that it is and has been a model institution.". New York Times. August 29, 1882. Retrieved April 1, 2008. The investigation of the charges made against the Superintendent and keepers of the Mineola Asylum for the Insane, which was begun last Tuesday, was continued yesterday by the standing Committee on Insane Asylums of the Queens County Board of Supervisors-- Messrs. Whitney, Brinckerhoff, and Powell. The committee were shown through the asylum, which is the old building of the Queens County Court-house over 100 years old

^John L. Kay & Chester M. Smith, Jr. (1982). New York Postal History: The Post Offices & First Postmasters from 1775 to 1980. American Philatelic Society. There was only one post office established in present Nassau County when the Long Island post road to Sag Harbor was established September 25, 1794. It appears that the mail from New York went to Jamaica. This was the only post office in the present day Boroughs of Queens or Brooklyn before 1803. From Jamaica the mail went east along the Jericho Turnpike/Middle Country Road route and ended at Sag Harbor. The only post office on this route between Jamaica and Suffolk County was QUEENS established the same date as the others on this route 9/25/1794. This post office was officially Queens, but I have seen the area called "Queens Court House" and was located approximately in the Mineola-Westbury area. The courthouse was used until the 1870s when the county court was moved to Long Island City. Later it served as the Queens County Insane Asylum and still later as an early courthouse for the new Nassau County, during construction of the present "old" Nassau County Courthouse in Mineola. It was demolished shortly after 1900 ... after about 120 years of service of one type or the other.

^ abRhoda Amon (Staff Writer). "Mineola: First Farmers, Then Lawyers". Newsday. Archived from the original on October 15, 2008. Retrieved November 11, 2012. That was the year when the "Old Brig" courthouse was vacated after 90 years of housing lawbreakers. The county court moved from Mineola to Long Island City.

^"Archived copy". Archived from the original on June 10, 2007. Retrieved December 31, 2007.CS1 maint: Unfit url (link)

^The former county courthouse was located northeast of the intersection of Jericho Turnpike (NY Route 25) and the aptly named County Courthouse Road in an unincorporated area of the Town of North Hempstead, variously referred to in the present day as Garden City Park or New Hyde Park. The site is now a shopping center anchored by a supermarket and is located in the New Hyde Park 11040 Zip Code. A stone marker located on the north side of Jericho Turnpike (NY Route 25), between Marcus Avenue and Herricks Road, identifies the site.

^"A Queens Timeline". The Queens Tribune. Archived from the original on November 9, 2007. Retrieved December 23, 2007. 1874 – Queens County Courthouse and seat of county government moved from Mineola (in present-day Nassau County) to Long Island City.

^"Of Interest to Politicians.". The New York Times. September 13, 1894. p. 9. Retrieved December 28, 2007. (Subscription required (help)). The question of the Greater New-York, which is also to be submitted to the people at this coming election, involves the proposition to unite in one city the following cities, counties, and towns: New-York City, Long Island City, in Queens County; the County of Kings, (Brooklyn;) the County of Richmond, (S.I.;) the towns of Flushing, Newtown, Jamaica, in Queens County; the town of Westchester, in Westchester County, and all that portion of the towns of East Chester and Pelham which lies south of a straight line drawn from a point where the northerly line of the City of New-York meets the centre line of the Bronx River, to the middle of the channel between Hunter's and Glen Islands, in Long Island Sound, and that part of the town of Hempstead, in Queens County, which is westerly of a straight line drawn from the south-easterly point of the town of Flushing in a straight line to the Atlantic Ocean.

^"Greater New-York in doubt; The city vote is for it and Brooklyn is uncertain.". The New York Times. November 8, 1894. Retrieved December 28, 2007. (Subscription required (help)). The increase in area and population that New-York will acquire if consolidation becomes a fact will become evident by a glance at the following table... Flushing... *Part of the town of Hempstead... Jamaica... Long Island City ... Newtown... The townships in Queens County that are to be included in the Greater New-York have not been heard from yet...

^Vincent F. Seyfried and Jon A. Peterson, History Department, Queens College/CUNY. "Historical Essay: A Thumbnail View". Official History Page of the Queens Borough President's Office. Archived from the original on December 18, 2007. Retrieved December 31, 2007. Even more crucial to future development was the opening of the Queensboro Bridge in 1909. This span ended the isolation of the borough's road system at precisely the time when mass use of the automobile was getting underway in the United States.CS1 maint: Multiple names: authors list (link)

^Vincent F. Seyfried (2004). "A Walk Through Queens with David Hartman and Historian Barry Lewis". Educational Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved December 29, 2007. The most momentous event in the history of Queens occurred in 1909 when the long planned Queensboro Bridge was finally opened. This ended the century old isolation of the county and dependence on ferries.

^Roberts, Sam. "Survey Hints at a Census Undercount in New York City", The New York Times, May 24, 2011. Accessed September 12, 2016. "How, they wondered, could Queens have grown by only one-tenth of 1 percent since 2000? How, even with a surge in foreclosures, could the number of vacant apartments have soared by nearly 60 percent in Queens and by 66 percent in Brooklyn?... Often, though, owners of illegally divided houses are reluctant to disclose the number of tenants, who tend to include people who are in the country illegally and are leery of providing any information to the government."

^Meyers, Naile-Jean. "Supporting Structure for Arthur Ashe Roof Is Completed", 'The New York Times, June 10, 2015. Accessed July 7, 2016. "Zausner said the stadium, the largest in tennis, will maintain its seating capacity of 23,771, though some seats in the highest rows were removed to accommodate two video boards. Seats were added in lower levels to replace those lost, he said."

^New Yorkers and Cars, New York City Economic Development Corporation, April 5, 2012. Accessed July 6, 2016. "According to the data, only 1.4 million households in the City out of the total 3.0 million owned a car.... In contrast, a large majority of households in Queens (64%) and particularly in Staten Island (84%) own at least one car."

^Marine Parkway–Gil Hodges Memorial Bridge, MTA Bridges and Tunnels. Accessed July 5, 2016. Accessed July 5, 2016. "The Marine Parkway Gil Hodges Memorial Bridge was opened by the Marine Parkway Authority in 1937 to provide access to the Rockaway Peninsula, which previously could be reached only by ferry or by a circuitous route around the eastern end of Jamaica Bay."

^"Top 3 Large Community Colleges in the U.S." Community College Survey of Student Engagement, 2002

^Silverman, Stephen M. "Punk Rock Legend Johnny Ramone Dies at 55", People, September 16, 2004. Accessed June 2, 2009. "Johnny Ramone, 55, was born John Cummings and grew up in Forest Hills, N.Y., soaking up rock in the '60s but then moving to an edgier sound."

^Williams, Lena. "Track and Field; Soothing an Old Ache", The New York Times, January 1, 2000. Accessed November 7, 2007. "Neither the outpouring of affection from an adoring public nor the love he finally found after four failed marriages could make up for the neglect and physical abuse he suffered as a child growing up in South Jamaica, Queens."